Study on the energy capture efficiency of flapping airfoil power generator using semiactive dual‐layer airfoils

Abstract To address the problem that energy capture efficiencies of existing flapping airfoil power generators are lower than those traditional turbine generators, a dual‐layer structure was adopted to improve performance semiactive airfoil, inspired by multiwing flying mode dragonflies in nature. The influence on systematically analyzed Taguchi experimental design and computational fluid dynamics simulations. results showed mainly improved efficiency increasing lift force reducing maximum sweep distance. Under optimized parameter combination, reached 28.80%, which 17.74% higher single‐layer airfoil. Furthermore, related mass ratio system, larger ( M * ≥ 40) caused deteriorate. Analysis vortices around revealed there were more attached surface but increase led an advance separation leading edge vortex, reason with smaller had better performance.